Yeah this is pretty big news for the casual game world, so here are my random thoughts on it:

Well Reflexive have already changed their affiliate scheme to remove a feature that allowed affiliate sites could offer discounts. This has worried lots of affiliates who wonder what will happen next and also developers are worried about possibly having a reduced royalty rate in order to increase Amazon profits. This could just be paranoia though because I don’t think Amazon would want to loose clients right after purchasing the company (unless they have bought it to shut it down because they have their own game company in the pipeline). I wonder if Amazon will be adding to Reflexive by making an online games/community games site too? I imagine that their business development team are pretty clued up and if they’ve cottoned onto the growth of downloadable casual games they must have figured out that online games are getting pretty big too.

With their finances and marketing clout behind Reflexive they could really push Reflexive to be a very big player in the casual arena – perhaps the biggest. It depends how quickly they work and how BFG and Real (two of the biggest casual portals) can sense what is happening and adapt. However, if Amazon make more and more people aware of casual games this could work out well for all casual game portals due to increased customer awareness, so it may not be a bad thing at all.

Also Amazon aren’t the only big players climbing into the casual arena as many mainstream game companies are doing this too but the hope from the casual world has generally been that these big guys will need to spend a while “catching up” to learn how to do things properly – this could be a false hope though. One more thing, Amazon may acquire MORE casual game companies too…

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9 Responses to “Reflexive Arcade is acquired by Amazon.com”

[...] Reflexive Arcade bought by Amazon.com Written by Jake on October 22nd, 2008 and posted in Game News Tags : amazon, casual, downloadable, reflexive This is the casual industry news that everyone is talking about today. Reflexive are a casual game portal with a diverse range of casual games and also a few action games thrown into the mix. They have always been a friendly portal for developers. This acquisition will no doubt mean changes for developers associated with Reflexive but it could be good news for the whole industry if Amazon successfully increase customer awareness of casual games. You can read more of my thoughts on this matter in my blog. [...]

Yes not only do Reflexive have pretty interesting games but they also have a catalogue which includes shooters and action games like the classic Alien Shooter. If these sort of games prove popular on Amazon it could be a good thing for programmers who like to make action/retro games. BFG have got lots of very innovative titles in the pipeline, in fact it’s my job to help make them!

[...] Casual Game Portal featuring over 600 games priced at $9.99 or less. Last October I wrote about how Amazon bought Reflexive and was just thinking last night “hmm, I wonder when Amazon will actually do anything with [...]

Good Question GameGag. So I can’t answer from an affiliate point of view as I don’t promote Reflexive games any more since becoming a BFG employee. Some people on Indiegamer are Reflexive affiliates and perhaps we need to ask them for an update. From a developer point of view I am making a few more sales per month, but of course at a lower value. I don’t make enough to sales for a proper analysis of if the revenue is up though – although I suspect it may be a little bit. Other results are that BFG made all games $6.99 but you have to join the gameclub to get them. Real were already at $5.99 with their gameclub. I also reduced all the prices on my own site and had a flurry of sales but then they died down. Other Indie developers did the same (if they made casual games) but many stayed with the higher prices if they made non-casual games. There were probably more changes too. Anyone know of more?